Overview
Argues that the mid-Victorian novel should be read as a key moment in the development of trauma as a psychological category in the nineteenth-century
Argues that the emergence of trauma in literature is inextricable from the conditions of the mid-Victorian family
Examines lesser-known psychoanalytic theories, including Jean Laplanche’s ‘general theory of seduction’ to show how novel and theory both pose the uneasy encounter between adults and children
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book produces an original argument about the emergence of ‘trauma’ in the nineteenth-century through new readings of Dickens, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Collins, Gaskell and Elliot. Madeleine Wood argues that the mid-Victorian novels present their protagonists in a state of damage, provoked and defined by the conditions of the mid-century family: the cross-generational relationship is presented as formative and traumatising. By presenting family relationships as decisive for our psychological state as well as our social identity, the Victorian authors pushed beyond the contemporary scientific models available to them. Madeleine Wood analyses the literary and historical conditions of the mid-century period that led to this new literary emphasis, and which paved the way for the emergence of psychoanalysis in Vienna at the fin de siècle. Analysing a series of theoretical texts, Madeleine Wood shows that psychoanalysis shares the mid-Victorian concern with the unequal relationship between adult and child, focusing her reading through Freud’s early writings and Jean Laplanche’s ‘general theory of seduction’.
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Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Dr. Madeleine Wood worked as a Lecturer in nineteenth-century literature until 2016, holding posts at Brunel University, UK, King’s College London, UK, and Queen Mary University of London, UK. Building on her enduring interest in the clinical and therapeutic, she then retrained as a social worker. Madeleine now works for the NSPCC as a Practitioner, supporting children and young people through trauma-informed approaches.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Parents and Children in the Mid-Victorian Novel
Book Subtitle: Traumatic Encounters and the Formation of Family
Authors: Madeleine Wood
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45469-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-45468-5Published: 31 October 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-45471-5Published: 01 November 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-45469-2Published: 30 October 2020
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 344
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Nineteenth-Century Literature, British and Irish Literature, Family